Abstract:

This dissertation provides a new perspective on Habsburg Central European political history from 1848 to 1925. It examines this period of history as an extended interaction between bureaucratic government and representative government. During this period, the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor states) developed democratic representative institutions and transformed from a patrimonial society to one with universal suffrage and mass political parties. It also promulgated the most liberal constitution at the time, complete with a lengthy declaration of civil rights. But despite these liberal achievements, the state civil service remained a powerful institution within the state system and a frequent competitor to parliamentary power.

Specifically, my dissertation analyzes constitutional and administrative reform programs from the revolutions of 1848 to the mid-1920s. The Austrian state bureaucracy could trace its modern form back to the state reforms of Maria Theresia and Emperor Joseph II in the mid-eighteenth century. This bureaucracy, however, had to adapt itself over the course of the nineteenth century to the needs of a modernizing multinational state which was developing representative institutions, a politically-engaged civil society, and legal and constitution norms for the rule of law. New forms of representative government and institutions of local and regional autonomy did not diminish the role of the bureaucracy in the late nineteenth century. In fact, it had the opposite effect as administrative tasks, the responsibilities of policy-making and even the size of the state bureaucracy itself steadily increased.

This dissertation explores the transformation of the civil service from the executors of the emperor's will to a group of legal experts and policy makers. The larger narrative is set against the backdrop of the emergence of the welfare state on the one hand and legal norms protecting citizens' rights and the rule of law on the other. As the state bureaucracy became more and more involved in the social welfare of the citizenry it came into greater contact and conflict with political parties and elected officials. The bureaucracy responded to this conflict with various ideas for `reform,' which pitted it against political parties and elected local and regional governments in a battle for the goodwill of the larger populace.